At the Psychiatrist
by Rojas Walrus
Summary: Her dam was breaking and she couldn’t keep it up anymore. Not by herself. Her emotions were already tearing little holes in it, the smear of her mascara showing evidence of the leaks. Oneshot. Very Angst. Royai kindof . Rizacentric


**So I was stumbling about the internet and I found the awesome site called onesentance(dot)org. While I was reading them I had the angst writing mood strike, and I promptly chose one for a prompt (hah, see what I did there?)**

**So, to give credit where it's due, the Sentence goes like this:  
**I didn't want to let him go so badly that I told him this could be 'just a sex thing', something I regretted in the morning when I woke up alone with a pounding head and a black eye.  
**And I jus kindof went with it. Hope you enjoy!**

Riza sat down on the couch in a pitiful effort to make her situation seem less desperate. This was her last resort, the place she had promised herself she would never go. Even now she was tempted to stand up and walk away; she just needed to man up and shoulder her pain.

But she couldn't . She had spent too many years doing exactly that and she couldn't find it in her anymore. Her dam was breaking and she couldn't keep it up. Not by herself. Her emotions were already tearing little holes in it, the smear of her mascara showing evidence of the leaks.

"You can lie down, if you want." The psychiatrist's suggestion went unacknowledged, leaving a stale silence hanging in the air. They sat there for at least five minutes as she worked up the courage to admit defeat. The doctor just sat, waiting patiently.

Suddenly the need to confide overcame her stubborn sense of self reliance and she finally felt the desire to talk.

"When I was a little girl I hardly knew my own name. My father wasn't… abusive, but… sometimes I would wish that he had been. He hardly ever emerged from his office, and the few times he did talk to me it was in short sentences, things like 'do the dishes', or 'get your homework done'. Even when I would bring him his dinner he would just wave his hand to signal me to leave it on his desk. Most of the time he wouldn't even eat it." The words came easier and easier to her. She had never told anyone about her childhood, not even Roy (when he still gave a damn) and it felt good to let it out.

"I tried as hard as I could to do everything to please him, but nothing ever seemed to make him want to give a second glance at me. It was like… I was simply an inconvenience. I once got so angry, so… desperate that I went into his study and went through all of his books and files, leaving them everywhere, just so that he would yell at me. I knew that he might hit me, might break my arms, might knock me out, but I didn't care.

"When he got home I confidently sat in his chair, knowing that the study would be the first place he would go too when he got home. When he walked in and saw me surrounded by the mess, he just calmly took a breath and said, 'please leave my office'. I gave up after that." Now that she had started she had no desire to stop. Knowing she would easily be here for the entire hour she stretched out on the couch, relaxing in more ways than one.

"I think that's why I fell in love with him. The first time I saw him he smiled at me and said, 'you must be Riza.' I wasn't even eleven, but I can still remember the smile he gave me, and his confidence when he reached his hand out to shake mine, and, more than anything, the feeling in my chest when he said my name. I wasn't ignored, I wasn't brushed off, but instead I was spoken too, treated as if I was a person. Throughout the years he lived with us I had a bad tendency to follow him around, but I don't think he ever minded, and if he did then he never showed it. He always responded to me, helped me with the dishes, complimented my cooking, even when both he and I knew that it didn't deserve it. Talked to me under the stars. All the things that I had wanted from my father but never got.

"He became my world. Those years were probably the happiest in my life. But they ended. He left to sign up for the military, and I was left in the house alone with my father once again. But this time he did something that he never had before." Riza paused, not entirely sure if she was willing to go into _that_. The doctor said something, but Riza didn't even hear it. Hell with it, she thought. She was supposed to be able to tell him everything, so why not?

"He came to me, and asked for something. Before then I hadn't realized that I was still desperate for his attention, and the little girl in me had been singing songs when he called me by my name. When he said that he needed me, I would have been willing to jump off a cliff, had he asked it of me.

"He said that he would have to give me a very large…" she paused, unable to say the word. "…marking, and that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. If I would have had doubts, they would have been wiped away when he offered me an out. The thought that he not only wanted my help, but cared about what I thought, there was absolutely nothing I wouldn't have done for him." She stopped talking, the memories of the months of him stabbing the ink needles into her skin repeatedly made her want to cringe. Before that she had never felt such incredible pain. "I never made a sound when he was giving me the tattoo." She found that she didn't mind saying the words as much as she thought she would. "Not once. I think I sliced my lip open more than once, but I managed to keep quiet the entire time.

"It wasn't even a year before he got back, having enlisted in the Military. He and my father went up in the study and talked for a long time. I went to check on them to see if everything was alright, and I saw my father die in his hands.

"That was the first time I ever remember crying."

She shifted uncomfortably in the couch seeking a position for her hands that wouldn't feel awkward. She decided at that moment to not talk about her tattoo at all anymore. She had dealt with all that, and didn't need any more help with it.

"A week after my father's funeral Roy's leave was up and he left for the army, to take the State Alchemist's exam with the knowledge that he had gained. The next time I saw him was in Ishbal."

She could hear the psychiatrist scribble notes on his notepad, and she sat in silence, waiting for him to finish. When she no longer heard the scraping sound of pen on paper she skipped ahead a few years.

"When the war ended I requested to serve underneath him, and he asked me to be his personal aide. I accepted without a second's hesitation. After that my life was never about me. I didn't mind, mainly because he was the one I was serving; I was in love with him, and was willing to go to hell and back with him. But he never shared the affection. He loved all his subordinates, and I was no acceptation, but it was never anything more than that. It seemed like he dated every woman in Eastern except me. I was the ever loyal Hawkeye, and while on the outside I managed a calm, cool demeanor, managed to make it seem like I never cared, I felt like I was in the same position I had been with my father.

"I wanted him to love me back.

"On the night that his best friend died, or rather, the night he found out his best friend died, I found him drunk in some in some ally, unable to find his way back. I picked him up and drove him back to his apartment and helped him inside. When I turned to leave he grabbed he and told me that he didn't want me to leave. That was the night that I lost my virginity, and he was too drunk to realize what he had happened in the morning. He still doesn't know."

She was surprised by how easily the words were coming to her mouth. She had never expected it to feel so incredible to let go of the secrets that she had held onto throughout the years. The ones that nobody knew about.

"The next time we slept together was after he lost his eyesight. He had hit rock bottom and he spent most of his time at home, tipping bottles of whiskey. I did it because I wanted to give him back his confidence, he hadn't been on a date sense before he went blind. And because." She had to urge the next few words to come out. "Because I wanted him. More than anything. I wanted to be in his arms during his nights of passion and I wanted to be the one he shared his affections with. SO I gave myself up to him. The next morning he told me that he didn't love me.

"He said that he felt bad that he hadn't been able to stop himself the night before because he had been so desperate, even though he knew that I loved him. He told me that he was sorry, and that he should have had more respect for me, and that 'he knew that I probably wouldn't want to see him again.' But I was desperate. I didn't want to let go of him so badly that I told him that it could 'just be a sex thing,' that he wouldn't be tied down at all.

"He didn't sleep with anyone else during that time, probably more out of mercy than anything else, which I was thankful for, but our relationship was never anything more than friendship.

"And then I got pregnant."

She glanced up at the clock.

"I was afraid to tell him. I was afraid that he'd think that I had done it on purpose to chain him down. When I did tell him he sat down and didn't talk for about ten minutes. Then he stood up, looked at me, and pulled me into his arms. He told me he loved me, which I knew was a lie, and he knew that I knew that it was a lie, but I held onto it desperately nonetheless. Thinking that if I thought he was telling the truth hard enough then it _would_ be true.

"We got married three months after, and we played pretend. Everyone thought it was a match made in heaven, so we played along, even with each other. That was when I started having nightmares. About the war, about the revolution. Never before.

"The only thing I truly wanted was a son. I wanted Roy to be able to hold his child in his arms and for him to be able to love him as his son. If I could make him happy by giving him a son then everything would be worth it."

She wasn't able to say anything for a long time. Her time was running out, but the words wouldn't come. When they did she had said them before she realized.

"My child was stillborn."

She remembered Roy's face, not angry, but horrified. In the months before he would often feel her stomach, a boyish grin spreading across his face and his sightless eyes expressing joy that she hadn't see since their childhood. When he learned that his son was dead, for it had been a boy, he had looked as devastated as when he had learned that Maes had died. She didn't see him for a week, and she couldn't justify looking for him.

"We stopped pretending after that. Gradually, but our drive, our motivation was gone. He started to drink more, and he started to…" She couldn't bring herself to say it. She spent too much time covering up the bruises with make-up to just say it.

"He spent a lot more time at work. He said that he married me, and that he wouldn't leave me, but that if I ever wanted out then I could go. He would still support me, and I wouldn't ever have to see him again, if I didn't want to, but… I still loved him." She let out a light, pitiful laugh. "I _still_ love him."

"Once, while we were having sex, he told me straight to my face that he had cheated on me with his secretary. I just smiled in pity of myself and let out a short laugh before going back to it."

Her time was up. He no doubt had another patient to get to, and she had her husband to back to, so she would leave.

"I don't know if I'll come back again." That was a lie. She hadn't realized how much she needed this, how good it felt to just let it all out, until now. Suddenly she wasn't having thoughts about how good the barrel of a gun might taste. The doctor spoke up for the first time that she registered in the past hour.

"You're always welcome. Whether for advice, or to just talk. Just call in advance and I'll fit you in." She nodded her thanks, shook his hand, and left out the door.

**Now it's revised!**

**So, to give credit where it's due, the Sentence goes like this:  
**I didn't want to let him go so badly that I told him this could be 'just a sex thing', something I regretted in the morning when I woke up alone with a pounding head and a black eye.  
**And I jus kindof went with it. Hope you enjoy!**


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